Business Exchange Profile

xTuple Manufacturing Edition

Professional ERP for Manufacturers and Distributors
The Manufacturing Edition of xTuple is a fully-integrated end-to-end software system for make-to-order, make-to-stock, and mixed-mode manufacturers. It contains everything in the open source PostBooks and the xTuple Standard Edition, plus additional enterprise-class functionality specifically for manufacturers.

A modular approach
xTuple, like most business management software, is organized by functional areas, or modules. These modules (listed below) are highly interconnected and integrated, and you can customize which modules – even which individual tasks – each of your staff is authorized to use.

Product
xTuple's Product module includes Items, Bills of Materials and support for Standard, Actual and Average Costing. You have enormous flexibility in defining and describing your Items, including support for Aliases (what your customers or suppliers might call something), Substitutes, various types of Images suitable for online catalogs, pick lists, engineering diagrams, and more. There are Item Variants, with support for user-defined Options and Attributes, which allows you to build infinite variations on your standard finished goods. Bills of Materials, the basic definition of how a product is manufactured, can be as simple, or as complex, as you like (an infinite number of levels deep).

Inventory
xTuple has some of the most powerful Inventory features in its class. Each Item has a corresponding Item Site which determines order parameters, ABC class, lead time, and where and how the Item is located in various Warehouses. The system is fully multi-warehouse and supports multiple Locations inside Warehouses – including the ability to define whether a Location is Netable for purposes of valuing Inventory and the ability to define Quarantined or other Restrictive Locations. You can even define Warehouse Zones and Aisle/Rack/Bin/Location controls. During a Physical Inventory Count, you can freeze inventory quantities to minimize the impact on ongoing production. And of course, you have full lot and serial control, with detailed inventory transaction history. Shipping & Receiving supports multiple carriers, user-customized forms and reports and is fully integrated with Production, Inventory, Sales, Purchasing and Financials. xTuple supports all leading barcode formats, including Code 3 of 9, Code 128, UPC and EAN, and supports both tethered and wireless barcode reader solutions.

Manufacture
The Manufacture module is the heart of xTuple's manufacturing execution and controls all orders, operations and work centers on the shop floor. There are several stages of Work Orders, including Open, Exploded (materials requirements issued and operations created), Released to the floor, In Process and Closed. Managers can control production schedules and priorities at all stages of the manufacturing process and can track variances in material usage and labor with precision. You can also maintain and modify Production Bills of Materials and Bills of Operations for maximum flexibility.

Schedule
The Schedule module (available in Manufacturing Edition only) allows you to be proactive in managing your production and inventory levels. Your planners can build out your Master Production Schedule (MPS) with Production Plans and Forecasts, time-phased over standard calendars that you define, whether absolute or relative. Use MRP to determine when to build assemblies, sub-assemblies and order component parts – or, if your organization is more dynamic, use Manufacturing Edition's powerful Running Availability feature for up-to-the-minute insight across your operations. Use Capacity Planning to improve your production scheduling and utilization of labor and machinery by tracking activity at individual work centers over time. Identify bottlenecks and down time (by Item, Work Center or Planner) and increase efficiency across the organization. The Constraint Management subsystem enables simplified Shop scheduling based on Lean and Theory of Constraints concepts.

Sales
Order entry in the Sales module is where it all begins. Sales representatives have complete visibility into real-time inventory availability and the production schedule. You have the option of letting customer demand drive work order production directly (or purchase requests, in the case of purchased items). xTuple supports Quotes, which can be converted to actual Orders when firm, and multiple levels of tax codes which can be tailored to your customers local markets. The system also allows for a rich array of pricing options, by Customer, Groups, Types and Categories – as well as special promotions and sales, and the ability to throttle customer buying power by credit rating. Deep and rich historical sales data is available for detailed analysis across multiple time periods, using multiple variables. xTuple ships with over 200 standard Reports, including 30 in Sales Analysis. All reports are fully customizable using the OpenRPT graphical report writer, included with the xTuple system.

CRM
The CRM (Corporate – or the more common Customer – Relationship Management) module adds more dimensions to the Customer picture – with a Universal Address Book that allows multiple Contacts and Addresses per Account and allows Accounts to be Prospects, Customers, Vendors, Partners, even Competitors. Incident Management and To-Do List subsystems enable rich history and tracking of customer issues and communications. Opportunity Management tracks pre-sales prospecting and is tightly integrated with other CRM subsystems, as is Project Management, allowing you to associate Quotes, Sales Orders, Work Orders and Purchase Orders with a particular Project – and track progress and individual Tasks within the Project. You can also enter and track Time and Expense by Project Tasks and create customer Invoices and employee Vouchers for project work completed.

Purchase
xTuple's Purchase module manages all of your interactions with Vendors, including Purchase Requests, actual Purchase Orders, Vouchers and Receipts. It is fully integrated with the entire system in real time, so you can consolidate and optimize your purchasing procedures across the organization. Keep track of Vendor Performance on Rejected Materials, Delivery Date Variances and Price Variances. Both Purchase Orders and Sales Invoices can be sent via email in any number of document formats.

Accounting
The heart of any business system is Accounting, and xTuple features a powerful General Ledger, which is tightly integrated in real time with the other modules of the system. You have tremendous flexibility in defining your Chart of Accounts, with support for four Segments in Account Numbers, each of any length. You may define an unlimited number of Accounting Periods per year, and certain users have the option of posting into closed Periods. xTuple supports Standard Journals and Standard Journal Groups, with Expiration and Effectivity Dates for simple Period-End Posting. Financial Reports are completely user-definable, and the systems open architecture facilitates simple interfaces to third party applications such as spreadsheets, payroll and fixed asset depreciation. Accounts Payable supports User-Defined Check Formats, assigned on a Bank Account basis, and full Reconciliation capability. You have total control over your check runs and can look at historical purchasing data, user-defined aging of open items and time-phased cash requirements. Accounts Receivable allows for easy creation and posting of Invoices, management of Cash Receipts, Debit and Credit Memos, and time-phased cash projections and open receivables.

xTuple Manufacturing Edition Reviews

5

I would use this again

Gerhard Peters

(Founder and Entrepreneur at Interaction Versa Inc.)

Business where it was used: Revenue: Less than $10M, Industry: Technology

I've been using and implementing xTuple ERP for over a year now and it is a phenomenal system. It is not difficult to learn and use. xTuple is strong on manufacturing and distribution. What is the best about the system is that a company can start with the open source free edition and grow in to using the more advance functionality of the commercial editions. The PostBooks edition is a fully featured accounting system and it already includes light manufacturing capabilities. It offers lot of room for growth.